The Russian English-language channel RT, which is funded by the Russian government, says it has the rights to air a new television chat show that will be hosted by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

A spokeswoman for the channel, formerly known as Russia Today, told the AFP news agency that RT had the rights to air the episodes of the chat show first.

The channel did not elaborate, saying that "details of the episodes and the guests featured are secret for now."

WikiLeaks announced the show on January 24, saying it would begin airing in March.

"Obviously, it would be any channel's dream right now to get Assange, but I think it's quite natural that his show will be on RT," station news executive Nikolai Bogachikhin said. "I mean, RT always tries to go beyond, to see other sides of any news story and show the real reasons behind any news that you would see on mainstream channels."

Assange is currently fighting extradition from Britain to Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him over allegations that he sexually assaulted two Swedish women.